US blogger Richard
Silverstein said Saturday that Israel was the
mastermind behind the blast the killed at least 17
people at an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps
base near Tehran.

In his blog,
Tikun Olam, Silverstein quotes an Israeli expert
as saying that the Mossad was responsible for
the explosion, in collaboration with the Iranian
militant opposition group Mojahedin-e-Khalq.

"It is widely
known within intelligence circles that the
Israelis use the MEK for varied acts of
espionage and terror ranging from fraudulent
Iranian memos alleging work on nuclear trigger
devices to assassinations of nuclear
scientists and bombings of sensitive military
installations," Silverstein said.

He attributed
an incident similar to Saturday's explosion
which occurred
at a different IRGC missile base last year
to Mossad sabotage.

A
senior officer in Iran's weapons
industry was killed in Saturday's
blast outside Tehran, officials in
the country said.

The
officer, identified as Hassan
Tehrani Moqaddam, held a rank
parallel to brigadier general in
Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards,
the Fars news agency said. He
reportedly served as a researcher
at a Tehran university and headed
the "Jihad Self-Reliance" unit,
mostly tasked with developing arms
and missiles following the embargo
imposed on Iran since 1979.

Tehran claims
to have Duqu malware,
virus similar to
Stuxnet, under control
as allegations blaming
Israel for mysterious
Revolutionary Guard
base blast emerge

Iran said
on Sunday it had
found a way to
"control" the
computer malware
Duqu, which is
similar to Stuxnet
virus which in 2010
attacked its nuclear
program and infected
more than 30,000
computers.

"The
software to
control the (Duqu)
virus has been
developed and made
available to
organizations and
corporations" in
Iran, head of
civil defense
Brigadier General
Gholamreza Jalali
told the official
IRNA news agency.